Japan Day 8: Okayama City

In the morning we slept in, read, planed and then warmed up a bunch of leftovers and stuff for breakfast.

It was an awesome breakfast because it had been an awesome dinner the night before when Chiaki made it.

Chiaki went to work and KK took the rest of us to Okayama City. We have been in Okayama prefecture (state) most of the time in KK’s hometown but we were headed to the capitol and largest city in his prefecture. Mostly we were off to see the castle.

But the castle was located in an amazing garden.

We paid abour $6 for adults and $3 for kids to get into the garden and castle.

The castle was visible early on but we took our time getting to it and explored the very peaceful garden area first.

There was a lot of water and some bridges.

and some water where you could get out of the sun and kick of your shoes and relax your feet.

Or if you were tired of being stuck in a baby car all day you could get out and stretch and not worry about sun burns.

There were lots of beautiful trees and plants and flowers.

We crossed some other bridges.

and made our way towards the castle.

We got a pretty good look at it before coming to the moat.

Whomever lived here and wanted to protect it had a really nice moat built around it so we had to use a big bridge to get over.

For the most part pictures were not allowed inside. We saw old samari armor and weapons and artwork and tools and stuff. Then we rounded a corner and some lady told KK we could dress up in kimonos for free. Heath about exploded with excitement.

She got right after it and got her outfit all on and convinced the lady to give her a wig.

Next was Peanuts turn and he was a little excited until a pretend sword was stuck in his belt then he was super excited.

Then I was dressed

I looked pretty sweet until my wig came then I looked funny.

KK took a bunch of our pictures and then borrowed the wig.

We took off the costumes and made our way through the rest of the castle. We had seen about everything and were getting pretty hungry so made out way out.

We got some lunch at a rice bowl place that was kind of a copy of the place we went to a few days ago. It was also pretty good and cheep. After lunch we headed to a park with a pretty impressive playground.

It was a huge wood/metal/rope structure with slides, zip lines and passageways to climb all over. We went for Peanut to play.

but the rest of us could not help having some fun.

It was pretty hot so after we had tried out the coolest parts we left Peanut to play and the rest of us climbed into some netting in the bottom and relaxed.

When it was time to go we had a few last minute zip line races with Peanut and then headed out.

We drove back to the apartment and had some snacks and drinks and hung out and made some plans for a while. Then we walked to a nearby mall. Peanut ate McDonalds and played at an arcade and I played with him and pushed Bean in the stroller then we came back and got ready for bed. The rest of the gang went to a Karaoke booth with a bunch of KK’s coworkers. I’ll know more about that story tomorrow.